
What we are says far more than what we say or do. Yet, these were just shallow, quick successes, overlooking the deeper principles of life.Ĭovey argues it’s your character that needs to be cultivated to achieve sustainable success, not your personality.

However, after the war, there was a shift to what Covey refers to as the “Personality Ethic.” Here, success was attributed as a function of personality, public image, behaviors, and skills. This included characteristics such as humility, fidelity, integrity, courage, and justice. It was here that he noticed a stark historical contrast between two types of success.īefore the First World War, success was attributed to ethics of character.

In an attempt to understand why, he read several self-improvement, self-help, and popular psychology books written over the past 200 years. During his 25 years of working with successful individuals in business, universities, and relationship settings, Stephen Covey discovered that high-achievers were often plagued with a sense of emptiness.
